Thursday, October 20, 2016

Michael Zieba is a knifemaker and all-around craftsman from Poland, now residing and working in Brooklyn NY. Before knifemaking, his most significant work was finishing and polishing the golden Oscar statues, that are given at the Academy Awards ceremonies for achievements in film-making. These days he primarily makes custom folders and kitchen knives.Not long time ago a friend of his, a Polish knife designer named Ostap Hel, designed a knife, a gentleman's friction folder with very slim and slick lines. He wanted to collaborate with Michael on the production, but it didn't work out. Michael reworked the knife into a front-flipping frame lock and released it under the name of the G2 folder. The knife was reviewed by Jim Skelton and of course wasn't skipped by his Chinese subscribers (in this case - CH Knives).Long story short - the G2 clone was born. It received very positive reviews from the clone reviewers, that liked the action, unusual opening method, overall style and finish.Interesting story about this knife is about the claimed steel (ZDP-189). A lot of sellers and dealers said this is a genuine ZDP-189 from Japan, while others argued that is impossible, because that steel is still a military secret in Japan, thus cannot be exported as a raw material. The low price of the clone was also a valuable argument against ZDP. Finally, Yeti521454 (Russian YouTube channel owner) sent his clone to a test, and it revealed a Chinese CW6Mo5Cr4V2 (M2 equivalent), which is a great steel, but not ZDP-189.Check out the new version of the knife here: https://goo.gl/RX9FGkOlder version here: https://goo.gl/NdFfQW